Gun use can be morally necessary

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Do you have stats to back up any of your previous claims? Linking us to the FBI website isn’t the same as presenting evidence to back up your claims.
 
PhiriTalk said:
Will you exhaust all non-violent means to diffuse the situation before resorting to the use of a gun? Or will you shoot first and justify later?
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I was taught to respect the proportionality of escalation. If a man raises his fists to you you raise your fists back. You don’t pull out a knife.

Most gun laws, at least here in civilized America, require that the person brandishing the weapon to demonstrate that (s)he had a rational fear for his/her life. The rationality thereof, of course, is determined in a court of law by 12 jurors of the shooter’s peers.

Any law enforcement officer of any sort worth her salt will tell you that an American cannot legally, justifiably, shoot a person unless they had a reasonable fear for their life. This is so important that we’re taught that so called “warning shots” are illegal precisely because shooting them as warnings necessarily implies that you didn’t in fact fear for your life (otherwise they wouldn’t be warnings and you’d be shooting toward center mass). It’s well understood among Americans who bear arms and are decently trained therein, that one should never draw his weapon unless one intends to shoot. Period. If you pull it out, you pull the trigger.
Would you retreat if you had the opportunity to do so?
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If it’s my property? No go. I keep shooting until he runs away. I cease shooting once he ceases to be a threat. “Threat” means a threat to either my person or my property. If I’m in public, then yes, as soon as he ceases to be a threat to my physical safety I will cease with my defensive behavior.
 
AlbertDerGrosse said:
If I’m put into such a position I will (by God’s grace) defend myself and those around me using any means at my disposal, including but not limited to my firearm which is legally purchased, registered, and legally carried here on my property.
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As you have every moral and legal right to do. Good for you!
 
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AlbertDerGrosse said:
we’re taught that so called “warning shots” are illegal precisely because shooting them as warnings necessarily implies that you didn’t in fact fear for your life (otherwise they wouldn’t be warnings and you’d be shooting toward center mass).
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Yep. Besides which, warning shots go astray. One must always know what is behind and around the target.
You’ve got some good training there brother. Not hard to guess where.
 
Jesus tells us that those who live by the sword, die by the sword.

The fact that “rationality” can include killing an unarmed person with a gun, is pretty messed up if you ask me.

And that is exactly why I avoid all gun people regardless of how moral they think of themselves. I would very much not like to get shot. And have no intention of ever owning a gun.

So you’d shoot a warning shot to get someone off your property? I thought you said that shooting was only to kill?

Does Catholic doctrine allow for the killing of a human being to protect property, even when no threat to your personal safety exists?
 
PhiriTalk said:
Jesus tells us that those who live by the sword, die by the sword.

The fact that “rationality” can include killing an unarmed person with a gun, is pretty messed up if you ask me.
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Did you miss this part?
AlbertDerGrosse said:
I was taught to respect the proportionality of escalation. If a man raises his fists to you you raise your fists back. You don’t pull out a knife.
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I don’t agree with deliberately killing a person with a firearm who lacks a weapon. Without knowing the details of such an individual case, I’d immediately assume that’s murder.

Which is wrong.

And which should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
 
PhiriTalk said:
So you’d shoot a warning shot to get someone off your property? I thought you said that shooting was only to kill?
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I’m of the belief that you should never shoot as a warning. You either shoot because you’re genuinely in fear of your life and believe that mortal defensive action is necessary, otherwise you refrain from shooting. You completely refrain from even brandishing the weapon.

I’m sure you have this idea that all of us Americans are gun toting wild Westerners, but rest assured, some of us semi-socialist San Franciscans like myself aren’t (but I still firmly believe in the 2nd Amendment).
 
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I am an American. A very small percentage of Americans own guns.

I see the 2nd amendment as an excuse to do nothing to prevent gun violence. There are even some who would like everyone to believe that gun violence isn’t preventable and that one should only jump into action after a shooting has already started. The US is the only developed country in the world with a gun violence problem. Gun violence is clearly preventable and the 2nd amendment is a huge impediment to preventing gun violence. Mass shootings will continue as long as the 2nd amendment is on the books.
 
Supposedly rational police kill unarmed people all the time. How is an armed police officer killing an unarmed person (who hasn’t even been arrested for a crime, let alone convicted) rational?

I believe that police officers should assume first that a person is unarmed. Especially considering the gun ownership statistics in the US. Very few people actually own a gun.
 
PhiriTalk said:
Supposedly rational police kill unarmed people all the time. How is an armed police officer killing an unarmed person (who hasn’t even been arrested for a crime, let alone convicted) rational?

I believe that police officers should assume first that a person is unarmed. Especially considering the gun ownership statistics in the US. Very few people actually own a gun.
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However, police are held accountable to a much higher degree than an uncommissioned civilian shooter. Just this week our news was awash with the great news that a police officer who shot an innocent Australian girl in the US Justine Ruszczyk , has been convicted. An uncommissioned civilian home owner would certainly have got the benefit of untrained doubt and been let off. It isn’t the police who have the problem.
 
I’d like to say that I’m in no way shape or form an NRA apologist. I neither support that organization nor do I support the general school of thought that leads to such absolutist thinking when it comes to firearms in America.

I would like to see sensible gun control here in the U.S. I know you’re about to seize on that word “sensible”, since it’s often used as a codeword for diehard rightists in the US who want no kind of gun control whatsoever. I assure you, though, I genuinely mean I want real, sensible gun control. I want gun control that actually addresses the main causes of random weirdos getting ahold of firearms (e.g. instituting a national database so that we can track firearm purchases across states as they’re brought across state lines), I want a significant overhaul of mental health services here in the States, which, while not immediately involved with gun use, is the best predictor of random gun violence. Taking a play from some Republicans in random places like West Virginia, I’d like to see kids, yes children taught how to use firearms, how to disengage them, how to recognize them, and how to report them. I don’t believe the 2nd Amendment is sacrosanct. I’m not among these “Don’t Tread On Me” patriots who believe any executive or judicial incursion on the “right to bear arms” is a necessary affront to liberty.

I hope I’ve made my point better understood.
 
Police aren’t held more accountable. Police officers who kill unarmed people are rarely convicted. People seem to put police on a pedestal actually and seem to think they are almost above the law. The cop that killed Michael Brown is the perfect example of this. Michael Brown hadn’t even been arrested and the cop was shooting him and he didn’t get convicted. The cop who killed Tamir Rice wasn’t convicted either.

When police are killing unarmed people, yes they are the problem. Why do police have guns anyway? Other countries with far lower rates of gun violence seem to do just fine with unarmed police officers.
 
Gun control is sensible. Making it easier for potential criminals to get guns doesn’t seem smart to me.

I don’t think the 2nd amendment is going anywhere anytime soon either, but I don’t see gun violence going away anytime soon either.
 
How am I moving the goal posts? I didn’t bring up the legal concept of rationality in the first place. I don’t think a rational person would shoot an unarmed person and I don’t think a rational person would walk around assuming everyone had a gun with them either. That’s all.

A police officer isn’t automatically rational just because they work for the police.
 
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So what is your solution to the problem? I neither want to make it easier for criminals to obtain firearms nor do I believe that violent crime will get better by itself either. I think we agree! 🙂
 
AlbertDerGrosse said:
I’d like to see kids, yes children taught how to use firearms, how to disengage them
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Absolutely. There’s a grandfather at our local range training his grandkids, a boy and girl. And he’s doing it methodically and patiently, starting them off with .22s. The granddaughter is getting quite good.
 
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